Alfred Hitchcock - again

 

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980)

Today's (4th April) Daily Telegraph has a major piece on Alfred Hitchcock's films - all 52 of them. Their Film Critic, Tim Robey, 'ranks' (why is everything 'ranked' these days? The newspaper has regular features on such 'rankings' - best small towns in Britain, best marmalade, best county churches etc.) Hitchcock's oeuvre, as it is the 50th anniversary since the release of his final film, The Family Plot. The paper introduces the selection - London-born Alfred Hitchcock is recognised as perhaps the finest film-maker this country has ever produced. Among the features he left behind are an extra-ordinary run of cast-iron classics, but also a clutch of little-remembered curios and - inevitably in a career that spanned 52 films in as many years - the odd flimsy fiasco that's best forgotten. Pleasingly, all his Silent Movies are included.

Back, on 29th February 2020, I wrote a Blog on my and a (alas, late) friend's Hitchcock Top Ten. I found it interesting to compare Robey's list with mine.

Robey's Top Ten:

1. Psycho (1960)    2. Vertigo (1958)   3. Notorious (1946)   4. Rear Window (1954)   5. Strangers on a Train (1951)   6. Sabotage (1936)   7. North by Northwest (1959)   8. The 39 Steps (1935)   9. The Lady Vanishes (1938)   10. The Lodger (1927) 

I found it interesting that there are four pre-war films, from his 'English' period; three between 1935 and 1938; and one silent movie, back in 1927.

My Top Ten: with Robey's numbering at the end.

1. Notorious (1946) - 3   2. North by Northwest (1959) - 7   3. Strangers on a Train (1951) - 5   4. Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - -    5. Vertigo (1958) - 2   6. Rebecca (1940) - -   7 . Rear Window (1954) - 4   8. Dial 'M' for Murder (1954) - -   9. The 39 Steps (1935) - 8   10. Frenzy (1972) - -

I notice, for the first time, apart from the outliers  at No. 9 (1935) and No.10 (1972) my favourites are packed into the period 1940 to 1959.  As for a comparison between the two lists, Robey and I agree on six films being in the top ten. However, his No.1, Psycho, I had merely placed in the 'okay' bracket. 

As for the four of mine not in Robey's Top Ten - Shadow of a Doubt, which I had as high as No.4, came in at No.13; Rebecca, my No.6 was his No.15; whilst my No.8 Dial 'M' for Murder only reached No.21; and Frenzy, my No.10, a lowly No.28. On the other hand, I did write in my Blog that I 'favoured' The Lodger (his No.10)

What of the 'duds'?

Robey listed the following in his bottom ten (from the last upwards):

52. Topaz (1969)   51. Number Seventeen (1932)   50. Champagne (1928)   49. Torn Curtain (1966)  48. To Catch a Thief (1955)   47. Jamaica Inn (1939)   46. Under Capricorn (1949)   45. Waltzes from Vienna   44. Stage Fright (1950)   43. Mr and Mrs Smith (1941).

I can't comment on Waltzes from Vienna, having never watched it, and I can't really recall much about Number Seventeen or Champagne. I do agree with his thumbs down for the following four turkeys: Torn Curtain (boring and poor, wooden acting by Julie Andrews and Paul Newman - when wasn't the latter 'wooden'?); Jamaica Inn (the two ripe hams, Charles Laughton and Robert Newton, ruining Daphne du Maurier's story. No wonder she was reluctant to let Hitchcock loose on any more of her novels); Stage Fright - more bad casting of another 'wooden' actor, Richard Todd; and Mr and Mrs Smith - a failed attempt at a screwball comedy. I would like to add the film which would have been at the bottom of my list, but which climbed up to No. 39 with Robey - The Trouble with Harry (1955) - which he labels an acquired taste. Well, I certainly didn't acquire it - boring with a capital B.  I was slightly surprised to see To Catch a Thief, in such a lowly spot, as I found it quite a pleasant romantic caper.

A parting comment. If I could just take North by Northwest, Notorious and The 39 Steps and my DVD recorder and monitor to the desert island, I would be quite content. If The Trouble with Harry washed ashore, I would kick it into the ocean again.

G.P.R.James' 'Prince Life. A Story for my Boy' 1856

T. Cautley Newby first edition - 1856

G.P.R. James moved with his family to America in July 1850, partly to build up his finances again (he had been successfully sued by the engraver who had been engaged to furnish plates for a uniform edition of his works and was out of pocket to the tune of several thousand pounds). They stayed first at the old New York Hotel and then at the alarmingly named Hell Gate, opposite Astoria. Longfellow met James and subsequently wrote that he was very frank, off-hand, and agreeable. In politics he is a Tory, and very conservative. James lectured at Boston as well as in New York, for instance speaking at a Dinner in the Metropolitan Hall called for the purpose of raising a memorial statue to J. Fenimore Cooper, who had died the previous year. James and his family moved to Massachusetts, where he rented a furnished house at Stockbridge. Here he met Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote of their meetings in his Journal during the summer of 1851: James is certainly an excellent man; and his wife is a plain, good, friendly, kind-hearted woman, and his daughter a nice girl. Another Journal entry recalled the son, who seemed to be about twenty, and the daughter, of seventeen or eighteen...and Little Charley, who was five.

Charles Leigh James - aged 12

When S.M. Ellis wrote his biography of G.P.R. James - The Solitary Horseman in 1927 - he acknowledged the help of Miss Blanche James, granddaughter of the author, who had allowed him access to the manuscript autobiography of her father, the late Charles Leigh James, whose early recollections provide the principal records of the family's time in America. It was while the James family were living at Stockbridge that James wrote Prince Life for Charles. The latter wrote in his autobiography: I wanted something written for me like The Wonder Book for Hawthorne's children. 

The fairy tale is only 46 pages long and in larger font than usual and, one assumes, it was written to be read at bed-time to the little boy. There are elements of Pilgrim's Progress about it, with very much a didactic frame work. The Prince's misfortune was that he had everything on earth he could want or desire, and a little more. had a fine palace and a fine country, obedient subjects and servants, and true friends...a fairy, called Prosperity, gave him everything he desired as soon as he desired it. Of course, he was bored. Worse, a little, drowsy gray dwarf, called Satiety, followed the Prince about wherever he went. Finally, having had enough, the Prince breaks out of his palace on his horse Expedition. He passes through a fine estate which belongs to a gentleman and lady, Activity and Ease. Between them, the estate is well-run. However, beyond lie the land of Labour and the forest of Adversity. The Prince hacks his way through the latter to a cave, where he encounters one of the most tremendous monsters ever man's eyes lighted upon. The monster's name is Necessity and the Prince must wrestle with him to prove his bravery. He is shown out the following day, only to meet up with a little old woman - Industry, who runs a tight ship for both human and beast. Two very nice, pretty girls work for her, one called Economy and the other Order. The Prince was assigned some work - Industry showed him the way, Order helped him a good deal and Economy provided him with the materials.

Again, his way is pointed out - this time on a road called 'the Right Path'. He was warned not to turn off the thoroughfare and, luckily as he was tempted to do so looking for sustenance, he catches up with a man trudging on before him. His name is Perseverance and, true to his name, he ensures the Prince remains on the straight and narrow. The two finally approach a fine castle; but, with one problem still ahead - two terrible monsters lie close by the narrow drawbridge. Their names? Difficulty and Danger!  Luckily, a man comes running down from the castle gate, a good, serviceable fellow by the name of Courage. The Prince crosses into the castle and is taken into the presence of a beautiful lady to receive a crown. It is called the crown of Contentment. I reserve it for those who, led on by Perseverance. come to me by the Right Path, in spite of Difficulty and Danger...(and what about any danger from the dwarf?) there is a rich jewel called Moderation, in the crown of Contentment, which is too bright and pure to be looked upon by Satiety.

Now, it is unlikely any child of the twenty-first century would be enthralled or convinced by such a moralistic story; but the early Victorian-age child would probably lap it up. I did, because it is another, very rare, G.P.R. James first edition!

Gordon Bowker's 'George Orwell' 2003

 

Little, Brown first edition - 2003

At just over 430 pages of text, this biography of George Orwell (Eric Blair), was another 'blockbuster' which has rested unread on my bookshelves for far too long. I knew very little about Orwell - having merely read Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), A Clergyman's Daughter (1935), and Animal Farm (1945). (No - I have never read 1984!) I found the story of his life fascinating, but I don't think I would have liked him. Interestingly, at one stage in his life he described himself as a Tory-anarchist; which is what I subscribe to! The book is far too detailed to be analysed is such a short Blog as this, so I have just put below some of the salient points I gained from its reading.

• from childhood he suffered from ill-health. Cursed by a weak chest, he did not help matters by being a heavy, life-long smoker and taking little care over his well-being
• his relationship with women was problematic. He never stopped desiring them - frequenting prostitutes in Burma and London, living with one in Paris and on several occasions almost forcing himself on colleagues or friends - even though he regarded himself as 'unattractive'. The many shrewd women who knew him almost invariably referred to his sadism and that he saw women as inferior
• he was prejudiced against Scots, disliked homosexuals and public schools. However, he was a staunch atheist but retained an affection for Christian beliefs and wished to be buried in a churchyard; he was a rationalist who took poltergeists and ghosts seriously
• Bowker sums Orwell up: Orwell was no saint; he was a flawed human being, full of contradictions and strange tensions - a faithful and gentle friend, yet a man with a poor attitude towards women, an enemy of state torturers with his own streak of sadistic violence, a champion of human decency yet a secret philanderer, a man with an ambiguous attitude towards Jews
• during and after his time in Spain - his hatred of Stalinism and the Soviet Union, which led to his suspicion of others such as Victor Gollancz, was almost visceral
• his sojourns on the island of Jura, where he rented Barnhill ( a kind of Cold Comfort Farm to one young student!) are made totally understandable by Bowker.    
• I found this comment of Bowker's a shrewd one: as a novelist Orwell had his shortcomings. He was insufficiently interested in individuals to be able to explore character, except his inevitably autobiographical central character. He could experience an intense imaginative vision of an inner life, but he could do it by looking in the mirror but not by looking outwards.
• I think he was a successful journalist cum sociological essay writer but not a great novelist; primarily a literary man with a sociological eye.

It is a fascinating story. his schooldays at St Cyprian's and Eton; his role as a Probationary Assistant Superintendent in the Burmese Police Force; his essentially 'fake' down-and-out days in Paris (his first manuscript was called A Scullion's Diary) and London; his short time as a (quite popular) teacher; his relative failure as a novelist - with A Clergyman's Daughter and Keep the Aspidistra Flying; his increasing well-thought-of articles in various journals, magazines and newspapers (e.g. his later involvement with Tribune); his time at the BBC during the  Second World War; and his two masterpieces - Animal Farm and 1984 - the latter written when he was increasingly ill. I am glad I read Gordon Bowker's book; whether it persuades me to read more of Orwell's work is another matter. We are certainly nearer the horror of the world depicted in 1984, than Orwell was in 1948 or even in the real-life 1984. Dystopia feels more real than Utopia these days.

Poor Eric was hit firmly in the solar plexus with the publication just over two years ago of Anna Dunder's Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life. Her aim was to rescue this droll, warm-hearted woman from oblivion and in the process wrench herself back into hard-won artistry. Funder suggests that any literary ambitions Eileen had were relinquished in order to cater for Eric's needs, including having perfunctory sex she did not enjoy. As one Reviewer of the book put it, she earned the lion's share of their income, kept house, nursed him through fits of tuberculosis, typed up his notes, edited his typescripts and 'encouraged' his work.  Funder cited several contemporaries who saw Eileen's 'fingerprints' all over Animal Farm - a book that displays a psychological acuity and humanity that Orwell lacked. Certainly Orwell does not come out of this telling well: he denied Eileen visits to her family and friends, let her clean out the cesspit and deal with mice while he got on with his books upstairs. Funder focuses on the couple's time in Spain, when Eileen kept her husband out of danger and often risked her own life for her ant-fascist comrades. Dying of cancer during an operation, at just 39, Eileen's life appears a tragic one. What might she have achieved - in spite of her famous husband?  

To the Lighthouse? No - To the Museum

 

I took Mrs. Dalloway to Ashby de la Zouch Museum this morning - not the woman, but our Penguin copy of Virginia Woolf's novel. I am having to clear space for my steady purchase of the Crime-Book Society's "Pocket" Library paperbacks. One paperback 'in', therefore one paperback 'out'. That's now our 'house rule'. I'd never read Woolf's novel, yet it had been on the shelves since the 1980s. Tucked inside the back cover was an article by Philip Hensher from The Daily Telegraph of Friday, 24th January 2003. It had a hyperbolic strapline: Few authors make one want to vomit: Virginia Woolf does.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Now, one shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but Hensher makes a pretty good stab at it. I am going to quote his article in some detail, mainly because I know exactly what he is on about!

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Woolf's novels are responsible for putting more people off modern literature than anything else. In many ways, they are truly terrible novels: inept, ugly, fatuous, badly written and revoltingly self-indulgent...the idiotic The Waves, for instance, in which six incredibly uninteresting people engage in interminable and ludicrously over-written monologues, interrupted from time to time by fey prose-poems about the sun rising over the sea, or something. Orlando, an unstoppably arch fantasy about someone living for ever...is one of very few works of literature than can actually make the reader want to vomit. Well, there you go! Actually, where Hensher goes next is really the point of this Blog.

To the Lighthouse is about an enormous house-party in the Hebrides, and crucially about the question of whether a trip will be undertaken to the lighthouse the next day. Halfway through the novel, a long stretch of time passes in a few pages, during which the hostess of the party, Mrs Ramsay, is killed off in half a sentence. In the last section of the novel, some of the characters return to the house and actually go to the lighthouse...the great problem with To the Lighthouse is that Woolf is completely incapable of imbuing any of her characters with any kind of memorable life...About the world, and about human motivation [Woolf] obviously knows almost nothing...famously, poisonously snobbish - "How I hated marrying a Jew", she wrote once - she is led by this to say the most preposterous things. "Possibly the greatest good requires the existence of a slave class".

But the single worst thing about her books is how badly written they are. They were published by Woolf herself, without any editorial intervention, and it shows.

Back to To the Lighthouse and my interest in the above piece. I suffered the dreadful book studying for my 'A' Level English Literature course. I thoroughly enjoyed the two years spent in the Sixth Form, reading, reading, reading (well, and other things). I could never decide which subject I enjoyed most - English or History. I eventually chose to study History at university as I thought I lacked the imagination for English. Paper IV was  The Novel. I adored Barchester Towers, thoroughly enjoyed Hard Times, Wuthering Heights, Tess of the D'Urbervilles (though I preferred reading The Woodlanders) and Room with a View; was pleased we decided not to study stuffy Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady' and absolutely hated reading To the Lighthouse. I remember saying to the boy next to me - "I wish they would get to the bloody lighthouse". Luckily, one didn't have to write about it in the ensuing exam. The result was I have never read another Woolf novel to this day. How Mrs Dalloway got into my Library I really have no idea - perhaps she was a companion of my wife. Anyway, it has gone to the local museum's secondhand book sales. I have retained the only other Woolf novel on the shelves - out of a perverse sort of nostalgia. It is, of course, To the Lighthouse. I must make sure I dust it occasionally.

My Top 10 Ricardian (Richard III) Fiction and Non-Fiction Books

The Richard III Society's quarterly publication - The Ricardian Bulletin - latest Spring Issue landed on my doorstep this morning. Highlighted on the cover was the article on The greatest Ricardian reads of all Time' - 50 Fiction and 50 Non-Fiction. These were judged by a panel of twenty 'eminent' Historians, including me! Inevitably subjective, it was fascinating to read the lists and compare them with my own offerings. I counted 28 novels on the list of 50 Fiction written this century; just over half - four in the top ten. Some of those 28 I had never heard of! My most recent novel chosen is as long ago as 1982. Where we did agree was putting the same three in the top four, albeit in a slightly different order.

MY Fiction top ten (with their position in the Society's overall List in brackets)

1.  Rosemary Hawley Jarman - We Speak No Treason 1971 (No. 3)

2. Sharon Kay Penman - The Sunne in Splendour 1982 (No.2)

3. Patrick Carleton - Under the Hog 1938 (No. 8)

4. Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time 1951 (No. 1)

5. G.P. R. James - The Woodman 1849 (No. 27=)

6. Rhoda Edwards - Some Touch of Pity 1977 (No. 4)

7=. Marian Palmer - The White Boar 1968 (No. 13)

7=. Carola Oman - Crouchback 1929 (No. 49=)

7=. Marjorie Bowen - Dickon 1929 (No. 33)

7=. Mary Sturge Gretton - Crumplin' 1932 (No. 49=)

Clearly, no one else had probably heard of, let alone read, Crouchback or Crumplin', as they both scored a grand total of 2.5, compared with Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, which racked up 111 votes. I was actually surprised that James' The Woodman garnered 6 votes. Good old William Shakespeare managed to come in at No. 12, with a score of 19 votes. Interestingly, Scott Mariani's The Tudor Deception (2023) made the top 10 and received 24 votes.

As for the Non-Fiction - again, there were major differences between my list and the Ricardian panel's. I eschewed the most recent, rather controversial ones. Seeing who was on the panel, I realised these books were bound to figure, two in the top five.

1. Charles Ross - Richard III 1981/1999 (No. 6)

2. David Horspool - Richard III: A Ruler and his Reputation 2015 (No. 31=)

3. Rosemary Horrox - Richard III: A Study in Service 1989 (No. 4)

4. Caroline Halstead - Richard III 1844 (No. 14)

5. Michael Hicks - Richard III: The Self-Made King 2019 (No. 9=)

6. Paul Murray Kendall - Richard III 1955 (No. 1)

7. ed. James Petrie - Richard III. Crown and People 1985 (No. 36=)

8. Jeremy Potter - Good King Richard? 1984 (No.2)

9. Anne Sutton and Peter Hammond - The Coronation of Richard III 1983 (No. 9=)

10. Anne Curry and Glen Foard - Bosworth 1485 (Not on the list!)

I had thought of putting James Gairdner's Richard III on my list, but I am not surprised that it failed to make the top 50.  I was surprised that Clements Markham was second to last, at No.49, but not to see three of John Ashdown-Hills's books there - (at least Rosemary Horrox equalled this). After all, the list was compiled by Ricardians.  Also, it was The Greatest Reads, not the most sound History books; hence Kendall was bound to come out top.

Scott Mariani's 'The Knight's Pledge' 2025

 

Hodder  & Stoughton first paperback edition - 2025 

There is always a concern for any reader (and, one assumes, any author) that, after a strong start to a projected series, the following book will be deemed inferior. Scott Mariani can rest assured: building on the experience gained from his thirty Ben Hope novels, he has again delivered a first-rate tale with zest and verisimilitude. He has thoroughly immersed himself in the late 12^th century and skilfully blends in his fictional heroes with real historical characters. After previously being beset by tempests in the Bay of Biscay, Berber pirates and enemies within the Christian force, Will Bowman has finally reached the Holy Land. With his companions, the Irish Gabriel O’Carolan and Samson ‘powerful and hulking in stature’, he knows deadly battles awaits his fellow pilgrims and that many would not be returning to their homeland.  Both the Mussulmen of Saladin and Mariani would ensure this.

But first the Christian fleet have to deal with a Saracen ship armed with the fireball from hell – the Byzantine Greek fire – which destroys one Christian galley and is on the way to destroying several more. Or rather, Will Bowman deals with it, by swimming through a hail of arrows, to disable the ship’s steering oar. Congratulated by King Richard, Will is not only made the king’s man-at-arms, but given one of the monarch’s own swords. Can it get any better? Well, yes.

Whether Mariani is describing the sea battle or the attacks and counter attacks on Acre; the ‘teeming marketplace’ of the Christian besiegers’ camp or a claustrophobic night raid on one of their tents by Saracen assassins; all are spellbinding in their intensity. It is on the ramparts of Acre that Will links up with a ‘diminutive figure…working a crossbow with greater expertise than Will had ever seen before’. He meets the green-cloaked sharpshooter again, as they defend the pilgrim camp from a major raid by Saladin’s forces. She is Sophia Valena, who had set out with her father and brother from their home city of Constantinople for Outremer. Both men were dead; she alone was left to fight the Saracen. Unlikely?  In his useful ‘Historical Note’, Mariani points out that 12^th century chronicles tell stories of women involved in the conflict, including a Christian woman dressed in a green hooded cloak, shooting arrows from a wooden bow. Perhaps a forerunner of Greenmantle!

Sent out with five others by King Richard to guard wagons fetching water from the nearby river Belus, they are captured by the Emir Shïrküh Ibn al-Shawar and sentenced to death. Will’s prowess at chess enables him to defeat the Emir, another afficionado, who therefore honours his promise to release the six men. Further adventures follow, including a dangerous mission into enemy-held territory, where they meet up with one Sir Percival of Dudley, a leper knight of the Order of St Lazarus and are forced to sojourn in the atmospheric and dilapidated fortress of Bethgibelin.

King Richard the Lionheart is again a forceful presence, who raises the siege of Acre, defeats the Saracens at the Battle of Arsuf, and moves to Jaffa to establish his new headquarters there. Meanwhile, Will Bowman persuades Sophia to set sail for Constantinople while he returns to Jaffa. As the author remarks - whatever his destiny might have in store for him, every parting, every ending, was only the beginning of something new. To Bowman and his companions, Saracens, Moors Mussulmans, Berbers, Turks, they were all one. The scourge of the world…

Mrs. Belloc Lowndes' 'Motive' 1938

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition No. 81 - 1940

Marie Adelaide Elizabeth Rayner Belloc Lowndes was the older sister of Hilaire Belloc. She wrote over 40 novels, mainly mysteries with some of them based on real life crimes. Although I regularly see her books advertised for sale in my 19th and early 20th century book catalogues, I have never read, let alone purchased, any of her works until this Crime-Book Society's volume. 

She doesn't disappoint. The Prologue introduces us not only to the second footman at Blackmere Castle, Cuthbert Gell, but also his employers, Lady Flora and Sir Thomas Clarkson. When Lady Flora tells Cuthbert to take a cup of tea to her husband, we follow the second footman into the latter's study. The room was in darkness, but Cuthbert could make out Sir Thomas apparently asleep, leaning prone over the wide, brass-inlaid writing-table. Cuthbert switches on the electric light: Sir Thomas Clarkson was not asleep. Sir Thomas Clarkson was dead. Half of his head had been blown off. The shotgun nearby suggests it is suicide.

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947)

Shock, horror.  As well as Lady Flora and Cuthbert, there are in the castle Colonel Richard Wroxton, a long-time friend of Flora's deceased father, the Marquis of Lindore, recently owner of Blackmere Castle and Flora's friend, Mrs. Klint. Twenty-five year-old Sir Thomas was purse-proud, hectoring, and at times very rude to those in his employment. This compared badly with Lady Flora's character - she was not yet twenty. Sweetly pretty she was, and so kind, so unassuming, and so gentle in her manner. But, however unpleasant Sir Thomas was, who would want him dead? The first Chapter ends and now we go back eighteen months before that New Year's Day - this back story takes the reader from page 19 to 134. 

We learn that Lady Flora Cheyne (as she was then) had a sweetheart - Chase Bigland, the only child of the local vicar. Chase is determined to become a successful lawyer; already a barrister, he has accepted a post in India, because he believed it would help him in his profession, and partly because the amount of the fee offered had dazzled him. Of no private means, he knows Flora's father would forbid any marriage to a poor suitor. Blackmere Castle is actually in hoc to creditors, thanks mainly to the Marquis' spendthrift ways. However, Chase and Flora plan to persuade her father after he 'makes it' in India and move to a posh address in Mayfair, London. To no avail. Flora is actually sent to London to 'come out', in the charge of Mrs. Ada Durham (who had been lover of the Marquis years ago, and they both still held candles for each other!). Both the Marquis and Ada feel Flora must marry someone with  money. Their choice alights on the sulky millionaire Clarkson. Flora is forced to write to Chase to break off their relationship (in fact, they were secretly engaged). The author spends several pages constructing a (psychological) history of Clarkson - an only child of a successful business man (who regarded Thomas as a half-wit) and a possessive, philistine mother. He was now, aged 23, an exceedingly rich orphan. His wealth was just what the Marquis realised would put the Blackmere Castle estate to solvency again.

Lindore needed money; Sir Thomas wanted the kudos of high society. Unfortunate, arrogant, and ignorant young man! He felt he had now entered a kingdom of which he had never yet caught a glimpse - that is the Kingdom of Romance. The Marquis of Lindore, Lady Flora Cheyne, and the grey stone castle which formed their background, stirred something in his sluggish imagination... Thus, everything is set up for an Agatha Christie-like novel. The marriage proves a disaster. The Marquis dies. Colonel Wroxton becomes increasingly the 'uncle' on whom Flora lays her head (in fact, we find out he would like more). Mrs. Doris Klint  (36 years-old, genuinely poor, good-humoured, good-looking, and attractive to men) becomes the shoulder for Sir Thomas to moan on. They all end up at the Castle for that fateful Christmas and New Year. Chase, who has not got over Flora's behaviour, is back from India early and meets her by chance in the castle grounds, the day before Sir Thomas' demise. In fact, Dr. Raven, the local coroner has proved it was not suicide but murder. (As an aside, I found the ensuing relationship between Raven and Mrs. Klint rather forced, unlikely and not really adding to the story).  Doris Klint sends an anonymous letter revealing Chase and Flora had met up. Things look black for poor Chase. So black is it that not only is he put on trial for the murder, but found guilty and sentenced to death. Only then does the true murderer reveal himself/herself. Actually, I had guessed who it was from the first  few pages! However, the plotting was clever; the narrative drive sustained; and the characters stood up to scrutiny. 

John Chancellor's 'The Dark God' 1927

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition No. 85 - 1940

John Chancellor, the pen name of Ernest Charles de Balzac Rideau (1900-1971) was the author of a series of crime and adventure novels popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He lived in Paris for a while and published an alternative guide to that city entitled How to be Happy in Paris without being Ruined! (1926) He also spent enough time in Berlin to produce a sequel, How to be Happy in Berlin (1929). The Dark God was published by Hutchinson in 1927 and by The Century Cp., New York in 1928, as sensational detective fiction with rationalised supernaturalism featuring Clawson of the Yard. It was also published in the Pulp Magazine, Detective Weekly, in several parts in 1927.

Jane Dace and her American boyfriend Dick Parmandy are walking through a dark Hyde Park, after the annual Armistice Night Ball at the Albert Hall. They are amongst returning revellers (many dressed in garish costumes) who were ghosts amongst the tall trees . Their footsteps on the damp grass were soft whispers. Little moons of powdered faces flashed by in the gloom. A crowd of people pressed past Jane. Somebody breathed in her ear: "Done!" A nervous, highly sensitive girl, orphaned at fifteen, she had become a live-in companion to her Aunt Miriam. Easily frightened, she experienced a moment of cold superstitious horror. Who had said it. A real being or a ghost? Parmandy leaves her at the block of flats in Marylebone Road, where Mrs. Miriam Dace had a five-room apartment on the first floor.

The 63-year-old aunt - a small, thin, virile woman, with fine white hair, blue wasted hands, sharp features, with an acid tongue - quizzes her niece the following morning as to whether she will marry Parmandy. All boyfriends she treated with suspicion - they only wanted the wealth she was to leave to Jane. The latter goes off to the bank where a second shock awaits: a Mr. William Jones has paid £1,000 into her account. The rest of the day passes normally, but the next morning she reads in her aunt's copy of The Times, in the Agony Column,  an announcement with a black border around it: "To J.D. - Thou fool! This night thy soul shall be required of thee."  The fear she felt was a fear more dreadful that that of a known death. It was the fear of the Unknown.

So off she goes to see her best friend, May Smith, who, although she poo poos thoughts of the supernatural, does accompany Jane to the bank. They find the depositor of the £1,000 had left a fictitious address. May agrees to spend the night at Aunt Miriam's due to Jane's increasing fears. That night Jane wakes up to see what she believes is Dick standing in the darkened bedroom. Whoever it was disappears; but, horror, Aunt Miriam has been murdered, with a knife firmly embedded in her chest. It's time for Scotland Yard's C.I.D. to appear - in the person of Superintendent Clawson, a calm, precise, thoughtful man. He was forty-two years old...his eyes were warm and dreamy - the eyes of a poet or a philosopher rather than a detective. Worse news is given to Jane - the knife is an American Army clasp knife and it has Richard Parmandy's initials engraved on it. Whilst there, Clawson is summoned by a scream to Jane's bedroom - she is standing by the bed looking at a pillow: a red fluid had been worked over it, forming the word "Dead!" Supernatural or not? 

Clawson goes to work. Although convinced that Parmandy is not the murderer, he fails to stop his arrest and incarceration. He attends Aunt Miriam's funeral and the reading of her Will. Also present are Jane, May Smith, Mrs Toyne (Mrs Dace's burly Irish helper), Pickerman (Mrs Dace's and Jane's solicitor) and an executor of the Will, Colonel Twiney. The latter was a living caricature of senility, a horrible, smirking picture of age that has outlived the decencies of humanity and become nothing but a gibbering husk. His face was grey and shrunken; the eyes were black, shining pin-points hidden in boney cavities. Wisps of white moustache, so fine that the grey flesh could be seen through them, quivered on his upper lip, which was continually twisted into an obscene grin above his toothless, champing gums. Nice. Jane has been left nearly half a million and Pickerman also says he will immediately move £63,408 into her account from a deposit in her aunt's bank.  Mmm.

The rest of the story is how Clawson slowly unpicks various clues; visits the very strange and eerie home of Colonel Twiney in Dorking; finds himself falling for the sprightly, if much younger, May Smith (luckily, it proves to be mutual); and pins down the actual murderer and his accomplices. It is, needless to say, not Parmandy. The highly unlikely ending rather spoilt things for me. Good defeated evil but in a rather fantastic way. I guessed the culprit[s] fairly early on, but that didn't preclude my enjoyment of the book.  

Sydney Horler's 'The Man from Scotland Yard' 1934

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition No. 14 - 1936?

The title of Sidney Horler's first chapter, Dark Man - Fair Man, is apt, as we meet the villain (or one of them) and the hero within the first two pages. Diana Marsh is returning from the USA on the Mauretania and the liner is due to dock at Southampton on the morrow. Once again, she is being pestered by a cad - one Hector Graham - and, once again, she scorns him. He could have killed the little devil. Hard on his heels comes the fair man, Stephen Hurd (there was a suggestion of quiet and unsuspected strength  in young Stephen - she felt safe with him). He had been educated at Repton - bound to be a good egg, then. The ship docks; Diana looks forward to seeing her father and her pet greyhound, Lass of Fortune. Bad news awaits. Her father's kennel master, Josh Kelly, is on the quayside, but no father. That's because he had died in his sleep the previous night.

Of course, Stephen is suddenly alongside to help. Thank goodness, as she felt she wanted a man of this class to talk to. Off the three of them go to Belton Chase in the New Forest, that small Georgian mansion over which James Marsh had lavished care and money. Further bad news awaits; the family solicitor informs Diana that her father had died a poor man; the home would have to be sold.  Thus, the scene is set for Diana and Stephen to get to know more of each other and Hector to prowl. In fact, Chapter III is simply entitled The Enemy. While Diana is being shown a small cottage by her solicitor, George Smedley, a bluff northerner, a car swept by at a terrific pace - it is driven by...Hector Graham. He must not buy Belton Chase! In fact, it is purchased by a mystery bidder. Diana manages to buy back her greyhound, whilst the rest of the pack is sold to Hector. The cad also swears undying love for her, but he is more than just a harmless bounder. So much so, that Stephen, who seems to be never far away, knocks him down due to his over-familiarity towards Diana. Stephen has also given her a special telephone number - Whitehall 14000. Guess what: Stephen is The Man from Scotland Yard.

A further Chapter explains what Hector Graham is really up to. In fact, he is not 'Mr. Big'; that position is reserved for Kingfisher Dan. Captain Daniel McCorkell was a resourceful, unscrupulous, predatory master crook of Mayfair. Nicknamed for his fondness for flamboyant clothes, he was Hector's boss. It was his money which had set up Hector in the prepossessing Longmoor Grange, not too far from Diana's old home. The two crooks meet up at the Grange. The reader now finds out what nefarious business they are involved in - printing fake banknotes, for America, Europe etc.  Hector's visit to America had been to set up a link with a New York crime lord. The master forger is one James Bailey released from a seven years' stretch in Dartmoor. His whereabouts is a mystery. And Stephen Hurd is one of the ones trying to pin them all down. This criminal - detective cat and mouse game is what finds poor Diana enmeshed in.

Diana moves into Hope Cottage with Josh and her greyhound, which is being trained to run at the greyhound track (her father had been well-known there). Once again, she meets up with the unpleasant Hector. I felt that the greyhound sections of the novel possibly pandered to the author's own interests. Horler constructs a fast-paced narrative, with plenty of thrills along the way. He has Stephen Hurd and Hector Graham engage in not only verbal sparring ("I've devoured crook stories since I was a kid, and I've never yet come across a real detective"), but also fisticuffs and revolver pointing. There are dashes of humour and the usual flashes of racism from Horler (a buck n-g--r is mentioned, as is a fat, greasy Italian). It all ends well, of course. Stephen comes up trumps for the Yard - Kingfisher Dan and the forger Bailey are caught; Hector Graham can be charged with the murder of his thug henchman Cecil Kater; Diana and Stephen can get hitched and live at Belton Chase (a 'front man' had bought it for Stephen, who was very wealthy!); and Josh can sleep next door to Lass of Fortune. I enjoy a good yarn.

Sydney Horler's 'Black Souls' 1933

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition No. 33 - 1936?

I thought I was sitting down to another Sidney Horler rattling yarn, but was instead confronted by seventeen non-fiction shortish articles. No matter, as most of them were quite interesting. The majority dealt with cases set in 19th century Britain and were a mixture of murder cases and pecuniary dishonesty. The shortest - Dawson, The Rosy-faced Horse-Poisoner and Why Walter Watts Hanged Himself - were a mere seven pages; whilst the longest - Messalina and the Corset Salesman, The Snyder-Gray Sex-Murder Drama took fifty pages.

I rather took to The Abominable Madame Rachel, the subject of the first chapter. Born about 1806 and too ignorant to write her own name, she was sufficiently clever to extract thousands of pounds from other women who were either not content with the quota of beauty with which Providence had endowed them, or sought by artificial means to restore that which, in the ordinary course of time, had diminished. In 1863, she published a pamphlet of 24 pages, entitled 'Beautiful for Ever', in which she extolled the extraordinary properties of Magnetic Dew of Sahara and the Jordan Water'. She had apparently purchased the exclusive rights from the Government of Morocco. An officer's widow, Mrs. Borradaile, was successfully swindled out of over £5,000 over a period of years. Eventually Madame Rachel was prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud and tried at the Old Bailey in 1868. It took two trials before she was sentenced to penal servitude; after serving for four years she was liberated on a ticket-of-leave - to commit the same fraud again. This time she practised as the 'Arabian Perfumer to the queen'. Back she came to the Old Bailey in 1878. Sentenced to five year's penal servitude, she succumbed to an attack of dropsy and died in the infirmary of Woking Convict Prison in 1880. What a character!

Last of the "Resurrectionists" dealt with a little-known 'Burke and Hare' type body-snatchers in London in 1831. Prior to 1832, the only bodies legally available in England for dissection were those of criminals hanged for murder. The consequence was that the supply of 'subjects' was wholly inadequate for the requirements of surgeons. Large sums were accordingly paid for dead bodies - hence the ghouls. This tale involved three such men and a Lincolnshire boy of 14 - found to have been clearly murdered for the purpose. Amazingly, the signed statement of one of the men, John Bishop, said he had made a livelihood as a body-snatcher for 12 years, and had obtained and sold from 500 to 1,000 bodies. How did he sleep at night?

Other stories, such as that of The Reverend William Dodd dealt with forgery and general felony (Dodd was hanged in 1777 for forgery); Leopold Redpath sentenced to be transported beyond the seas for the term of your natural life in 1857; the M.P. for Lambeth, William Roupell, who forged his father's will and, in 1862, was sentenced to penal servitude for life, but was released on a ticket-of-leave after 20 years of penance; all are told with zest by Sidney Horler. The author appears to have ransacked old newspaper accounts and law courts' trials for his collection. No doubt this also helped him construct his own fictional tales.

Perhaps a more famous case (thanks nowadays to Kate Summerscale's 2008 book The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher and the subsequent ITV film of 2011) involved the murder of a nearly four-year-old infant at Rode Hill House in Wiltshire in 1860.  Only five years later, did the child's  teenage sister (as she was then) confess to the deed. Although Constance Kent was sentenced to be hanged, she was subsequently commuted to penal servitude for life, and then released after 20 years' confinement. She emigrated to Australia and lived to the grand age of 100! And they say murder doesn't pay. 

Most of the stories are set in the 19th century, but two are set less than a decade before Horler's own collection. The splendidly-named Messalina and the Corset Salesman...chapter addressed a murder in a suburb of New York on 20th March 1927. Albert Snyder was the Art Editor of the Hearst Sports Magazine called Motor Boating. Held in the highest esteem by his colleagues, it was his misfortune to have married an attractive blonde, Ruth, who became known afterwards as "The Granite Woman". In 50 pages, Horler  constructs the time-line and motives for Albert's murder in what he calls this triangle of sex. Henry Judd Gray  a diminutive traveller in corsets was arraigned with Ruth for the crime and both were executed in Sing-Sing's Electric Chair. It was a drama of the middle-classes - a tragedy worked out amid the quietude of peace-loving suburbia. What at first sight appeared to be a burglary gone wrong, with Ruth tied up upstairs soon proved, by too many unlikelihoods, to be a tissue of lies. She said she had been knocked out, but no bruise or lump was found on her head; valuable silver and jewellery had been left untouched. None of her articles had been disarranged, unlike her dead husband's. An illicit love affair was established between Ruth and Judd Gray; the latter had a seemingly cast-iron alibi for being far from the scene. However, a railway ticket found in a waste paper basket in his hotel room proved otherwise. Eventually, they both confessed and suffered the extreme penalty. A reporter smuggled a tiny camera attached to his leg into the Death House and actually took a photograph of Ruth whilst she was being electrocuted. It is on the internet and I have seen it. Ugh. 

Crab-Apple Tree Murders, the second longest and final story in Horler's collection, occurred twelve years' earlier, in September 1922, on the outskirts of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The bodies of Rev. Dr. Edward W. Hall and Mrs. Eleanor Mills, with whom it was known he was carrying on an affair, were found lying side by side beneath a crab-apple tree in a deserted lane well known as a trysting-place for lovers. His wife of eleven years, Frances, was connected with a very rich and powerful family in New Jersey. An ageing spinster, she had leapt at the chance of marriage to this attractive man. He had married for position and luxuries, not love. A young girl, extremely attractive and married to an uncouth husband, James Mills, was in the choir of Edward Hall's Church of St. John the Evangelist. Two and two did make four. They began an affair. After the murder, detectives quickly cast their net over the widowed Eleanor Hall and her brothers. Henry Hewgill and William Carpenter Mills. Although a witness, named Jane Gibson, swore she had witnessed the murder scene and testified in court that Eleanor was there, the three wealthy defendants got off. The "Billion-Dollar Defence" had triumphed. At the time of Horler's publication he could write - there are some people in America who still believe that, one day, this dark sinister secret will be solved.

Andrew Soutar's 'The Devil's Triangle' 1931

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition No. 29 - 1936?

It's less than a month since I read my last Andrew Soutar novel (see my Blog 16th January), which I found unusual but nevertheless quite enjoyed. The Devil's Triangle is again written from a slightly different angle and the strong narrative drive kept me reading so that I finished it in one day (unlike the last book). Sir Maxwell Deane, K.C., M.P., - aged forty, was handsome, alert, gifted with eloquence, shrewdness, and tremendous ambition - is sent out to Moscow to confer with representatives of the Soviet on matters affecting trade and certain concessions.  As he leaves the train, a young lady breaks away from a group of delegates and rushes towards him. With eyes that penetrated and, in penetrating, inspired!... the woman throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, first on the cheek and then the lips. She whispers quickly in his ear: "For God's sake, say I'm your wife!"  Being alert, he goes along with it. It helps that he knows her slightly - she is Anita Lavering, in her early twenties, and the daughter of Sir Douglas Lavering of Dunmore Square, an acquaintance of Maxwell's. They had briefly met once at a party at the Laverings.

The Soviets, seemingly satisfied, deposit the 'husband and wife' at an unpretentious hotel, prior to the conference Maxwell is to attend. Anita explains that she has been in Russia for six months and has been helping certain people get out of the country. She is in danger, hence her subterfuge. The ruse succeeds, as the two are able to get back, via Riga, Archangel and Murmansk, to London. However, the Soviets are so delighted with the story Anita spins them of a secret marriage in Paris, that they publish it in their newspapers. Inevitably, it is picked up by the London Press - to the great surprise of Anita's parents and everyone else. Back in London, Maxwell, who by now has fallen for Anita, suggests they actually get married to support the sham. She turns him down. Why? "I am already married." Moreover, she and her real husband parted less than ten minutes after they left a Paris registry office. She has not seen him since.

Anita desperately argues there must be some means of escape from the awful predicament in which we find ourselves. Alas, fate was not disposed to allow of any such escape. In fact, worse is to come. Maxwell's butler announces there is a very cultured gentleman to see him. A perfect stranger is ushered in - he was tall, alert, perfectly groomed - and introduces himself: Charles Pringle. My address until quite recently was Broadmoor Asylum. And he says his wife is...Anita Lavering! The reader is only on page 29, but they are now in for a further exciting 233 pages.  Pringle explains that he left Anita in Paris as he had to travel to South Africa and then South America, where he had big business interests. Moreover, after returning to England, he had been prosecuted by none other than Maxwell for murder. Maxwell  had argued for the death  penalty, but Pringle had been sent to Broadmoor as insane. Now he had escaped and where better to hide, whilst settling his financial affairs and escaping to South America. than at the home of the counsel who had prosecuted him! Anita has to be told: "My God!" said Maxwell, "If you're not insane, you're the most callous devil that ever lived."

The blow had come for Anita and Maxwell. Either, to Society, they were living in sin or she was a bigamist. As the pages are turned, the reader experiences the couple's desperate attempts to escape from this predicament. Kill Pringle? He says he has left a letter to be produced if he dies, stating his (legal) marriage in Paris. The author is good at gradually unravelling the psychology of Pringle. Behind the smooth exterior is a troubled mind, calculating but insecure. He can tease Anita, browbeat Maxwell, fool the older Laverings, but quiver when a warder from Broadmoor half-recognises him. To outsiders he calls himself Capristi - including Detective Slante of the Yard, who is searching for the escaped Pringle. He meets Pringle/Capristi at Maxwell's - does he recognise him? We shall find out towards the end of the tale.

To give any more details away would be a major 'spoiler alert'. Good does win out in the end, but not before another woman (Mariette Dubique) whom Pringle met in Paris is killed by him in her flat. I found that unnecessary for the plot, but I suppose it meant Pringle had to sever this mortal coil too. Soutar kept the narrative flowing, engaged the reader successfully with the main characters, who were all believable, and produced a compelling tale. As the Daily Sketch two-word quotation pithily says on the front cover: "Fine Thriller."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I read, a couple of days ago, an article by Clarissa Heard, entitled The Problem with 'diversifying' English literature. I quote - 

Lit in Colour, a campaign launched by Penguin and the Runnymede Trust to diversify English literature, has recently released its five-year progress report. 'Diversity' for this campaign doesn't mean diversity of thought, style, genre, poetic form or historical period, however. It refers to promoting writers on the basis of their BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) credentials while insisting that English Literature - cumulatively one of the most staggering achievements in Western civilisation - is too white for the modern classroom.

Simply, Bah! Thank goodness, one still can choose what one reads. For me (as shown by my Blogs) it means mainly pre-1960s novels (there are a few exceptions - Scott Mariani, Nicola Upson, C.J. Sansom) and certainly not BAME material. The rest of Clarissa Heard's article is too depressing to copy out. What is positive about the 21st century - apart from our grandchildren?

Grierson Dickson's 'Gun Business' 1935

 

Crime-Book Society paperback edition No. 28 - 1936?

This is only the second Grierson Dickson novel I have read, the first being Soho Racket (see my Blog of 23rd July 2025). I found the latter rather claustrophobic (sticking very much to the area of its title), but it was tightly controlled and there was a certain narrative drive to it. Gun Business I am not so sure about.  It starts well - It was only a few hours before she was murdered that Marie Morgeuil bought the scarlet silk pyjamas in which she died - but it never really lives up to that early promise. We learn very little about her in the next two pages of the Prologue; apart from a predilection for red - very red pyjamas because I am a brunette, we know she is South American, likes expensive Brazilian coffee and (much later in the story) works as a spy for her government - that of San Vallo.

The reader is then quickly introduced to the characters who will figure throughout the book. Victor Lyne, an armaments salesman. He had type of face which appeals more to women than to men - pale, with blue veins showing at the temples, blue eyes half-hidden by dropping lids, small black moustache above sensual lips. It was the sort of face which thrilled thousands of young girls nightly at the cinemas, which had in it something of the weakling, a touch of effeminacy and a trace of the beast. It still appealed to his wife, Lydia, even though their marriage had been a business deal. Victor had invested some of the profits of Flecker-Bastin, the firm of armament dealers he virtually controlled, in providing for Lydia. In return, he had acquired a share of the goodwill of her influential relations. What was the problem? Lydia thought Marie was one of his 'young girls'  

Lyne has a secretary, Janet Gale, who works for him at his office in New Oxford Street. She is presently compiling the formidable list of instruments of death which would be shortly on their way to the unhappy republic of San Vallo. The armaments would go not to the latter's government, but to rebels. This was being engineered by a treacherous member of the government, General Floriano Carrenza. Carrenza turns up at the office; Janet is not keen on him, partly because of his hands - brown and claw-like, and disfigured on the back by black hair. Not a typical white man, then. To add to the mix is the fact that a fat American, Berriman Lee, is working on behalf of his armaments company, Diamond Steelworks of Ohio, to steal the armament contract from Lyne. Strangely, Lee is boarding at the very place Janet has her 'digs'. When one adds the German master crook, Eitel  - cropped-haired, blond and solemn - who we have already met in the author's Soho Racket; an Italian-American Angelo Miglia; and a little cockney crook Pipey Hanna; we have the full cast of characters, who may or not be involved in Marie's murder.

We meet the famous Superintendent "Cissie" Marlow at his office in New Scotland Yard at the start of Chapter III. He is with his faithful side-kick, Sergeant Brodie, a heavily built, solemn-looking man and a persistent hypochondriac. One of the aspects of the novel that did not catch on for me was the banter that went on between these two. It appeared a trifle forced and eventually grated. They are sent to investigate Marie Morgeuil's death. Victor Lyne is soon under their forensic microscope; Lydia gets drawn in. Eitel, Angelo and Pipey are clearly working for someone in relation to the armaments deal; Carrenza and Lyne act increasingly suspiciously. One final character, Janet's potential boyfriend, Bryan Daly (who lives at the same lodgings in Mansfield Road) becomes involved. By this time, I thought that the author had lost the narrative thread; seemingly not sure which part of the story to concentrate on. The denouement bordered on the silly. It involved a light aeroplane flying low over London, tracking a carrier pigeon to a deserted house near Ham Common, where a kidnapped boy was held.

Perhaps the problem was that I kept putting the book down - Six Nations Rugby called as well as my regular Saturday morning breakfast group (we model ourselves after The Last of the Summer Wine but call ourselves The First of the Winter Plonk). However, I found it rather 'bitty' anyway. None of the  characters really caught on with me; perhaps Janet and Brian were the most sympathetic. There was too much of a Ruritanian aspect to San Vallo; Eitel got away yet again, which was a pity as he is an uninspiring character to read about. If Soho Racket was a B+, then I am afraid this novel was a B-.